CONTACTS:
To message Archimandrite Kyril or to arrange a baptism or wedding please email the Parish Priest@bristol-orthodox-church.co.uk (Tel. 01179706302 or 07944 860 955).
For more see: CONTACTS
SERVICES, PARISH NEWS AND RECENT SERMON ARE ON THIS PAGE
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Regular services: Every Saturday: 5.30 p.m. Vespers Every Sunday: 10.30 a.m. Divine Liturgy Confessions can be made before services and by request. Do discuss any questions with Archimandrite Kyril.
WEEKLY SERVICES & INFORMATION (Note: our Parish follows the “New” (Revised Julian) Calendar. For dates on the “Old” Julian Calendar, refer to an online calendar. NOTE: On days of evening communion (as on any Eucharistic day) we should in principle fast from midnight. If the demands or of our lives or our weakness necessitate a light meal, this should be taken by six hours before the evening service starts. [Guidance from the Archdiocese of Thyateira] Friday 4th April: 6.30 p.m. Matins of the Akathist
Saturday 5th April: 5.30 p.m. Vespers
Sunday 6th April: Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast (Lent). Sunday St Mary of Egypt 10.30 a.m. Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great Readings (link to OCA text):
Wednesday 9th April: 6.30 p.m. Vesperal Liturgy with the Presanctified Gifts.
Below you will find: PARISH NEWS, SAINTS DAYS, and THE MOST RECENT SERMON
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PARISH NEWS FOOD BANK: DON’T FORGET THE NEEDS OF OTHERS who do not have enough! Bring contributions please for the box in church.
**BUILDING NEWS UPDATE **: The Church is back to our usual configuration. But we are still in need of regular cleaning help! Meanwhile, the further scaffolding at the back of the church (to investigate and remedy woodworm activity and water ingress) has come down. We await a final assessment and quotes, but Initial estimates suggest this work too is going to be expensive! PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY! Once reports have been digested and contracts let the scaffolding will need to go up again! THANK YOU for your generous donations. Without this, we would not have a space to worship in. We are extremely blessed to have our own space that does not need to be shared with other users. If we look after it, the building will be sure to last a few more hundred years and serve our community for many generations to come.
GIFT AID |
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Some saints (AND FEASTS) of the coming days) Saints of the British Isles and nearby places are in red
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For those who wish to donate to our Parish online, our Facebook fundraiser can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/donate/453504039824339/?fundraiser_source=external_url
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
Archimandrite Kyril Jenner
Mark 9:17-31
“When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” ” (Mark 9:28-29)
Prayer and fasting are, or should be, two of our major supports in our contest with evil. We are constantly attacked by temptations. We need to make use of the ways that we have been given to help us to overcome them and to do what is right rather than give way to evil in our lives.
Our Lord showed us these ways by example. We find frequent statements in the Gospels that our Lord went to pray alone outside the towns where he preached, going either into the wilderness or into the mountains. He was the Son of God, but he was also fully human. He needed time alone to listen to his Father.
Down the ages the Church has developed a wide range of ways of praying, so that we may each find the way that allows us to communicate with God. Some follow an ascetic form of life, with long services, reading the Psalms, chanting the hymns, and saying the various prayers that have been composed for different times of the day. That is good for those living in monasteries. At the other end we can use very short and simple prayers. Our Lord showed us one example in the Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee, where the Tax Collector simply says: “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13) In between these extremes we have sets of prayers composed by the Saints who have gone before us.
Whatever pattern of prayer we find most useful, it is always important to remember that prayer is a time for listening to God. If we spend all our time talking non-stop to God, then we are not communicating. We have to open ourselves to God, so that his love and power may work in us and through us in the battle against evil.
When we look at the practice of fasting, again our Lord showed us the way. After his Baptism we are told that he went into the wilderness to spend 40 days in fasting. (Matthew 4:1-11) At the end of this he was able to defeat the temptation to misuse his divine power. He resisted the temptations to earthly riches and power and glory. Instead he humbly followed the way of service to his fellow humans: preaching, teaching, and healing. This life ultimately led to his death on the Cross, and through that to his Resurrection from the dead, by which we are also granted eternal life.
In the history of the Church we see various developments in the practice of fasting. For much of the year we follow the good habit of the Pharisee in the Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee. We fast twice a week, but we do not boast about it.
The most ancient seasonal fast seems to have been a total fast for the three days each year from the commemoration of our Lord’s Crucifixion until the commemoration of his Resurrection. Later this got extended with additional daily fasts for the whole of the week before Pascha.
Pascha became a normal time for Baptism, so that the newly-baptised would start their new life in Christ with the commemoration of our Lord’s Resurrection from the dead. As part of their final preparation they observed 40 days of fasting before Holy Week, imitating our Lord’s 40 days in the wilderness. Other members of the Church would join with the catechumens each year to support them, and to give thanks for their own Baptism. In this way the Great Fast of Lent came into being. Later other seasonal fasts were introduced before major feasts, one in each quarter of the year.
After teaching the disciples about the importance of prayer and fasting, our Lord went on to teach them about what would happen to him. “He was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” ” (Mark 9:31) That is where today’s Gospel reading ends, and we already know the story and understand it. But the verse which follows shows that the disciples had difficulty in understanding this teaching: “They did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him.” (Mark 9:32)
Saint Bede explains this: “This ignorance of the disciples proceeds not so much from slowness of intellect, as from love for the Saviour, for they were as yet carnal, and ignorant of the mystery of the Cross, they could not therefore believe that he whom they had recognized as the true God, was about to die; being accustomed then to hear him often talk in figures, and shrinking from the events of his death, they thought that something was conveyed figuratively in those words in which he spoke openly concerning his betrayal and passion.” (Commentary on Mark, Book 1)
Through prayer and fasting we are helped in our struggle against temptation and sin and evil. Through our Lord’s death and resurrection we receive the power of God’s love, in order that we may do good. Hating evil and doing good go together. Our Lord demonstrated this in the healing of the boy. Evil, in the form of the demon, was driven out. Out of love for the boy, our Lord raised him up to begin a new life, free from the torments of the demon.
Each day we have the opportunity to begin a new life. Each day we can repent of our sins. Each day those sins can be forgiven by God, the evil is driven out, and we are raised up. In this way, aided by prayer and fasting, we can grow in faith and in the love of God, so that we may ultimately be raised up in eternity.
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Like all small communities we rely on the generosity of friends and well-wishers. If you would like to contribute to the continuation of our parish and the upkeep of our historic church building, you can make a donation here:
https://www.facebook.com/donate/679204386685133/?fundraiser_source=external_url
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